Ask HN: Does anyone actually code at a hackathon?
This is really to vent my frustration. I've participated in about 6 hackathons in the last year. 4 in the SF Bay area and 2 in NYC. Today, I'm at the Foursquare hackathon in NYC. It seems the majority of people are just talking and networking. Now it is possible that these guys have learned to code without keyboards but I highly doubt it. I am not pissed that people are networking ... this should not be the primary activity. Otherwise, we should call it a bloody mixer!! The thing that really pisses me off is that these chatterboxes are going to show off completed apps ... ones they have not built at the hackathon. Now seriously ... in the few hours at one of these events, you simply cannot create a polished app unless you have a large group of developers who are seriously coding. I have seen such efforts (e.g. at the iOS hackathon at Paypal earlier this year ... people were actually coding inside the auditorium and talking outside).
I'm really frustrated by this state of affairs. I don't come to a hackathon to pitch my latest startup app ... I come to code. In some instances, I've decided not to present at all the end of the hackathon cause most of the other teams are presenting an extremely polished piece of work (again, I have BIG doubts that some of these are done during the event).
Anyways ... vent complete. It would be nice to know I'm not alone.
80 comments
[ 10.0 ms ] story [ 141 ms ] thread1. I can program at home any night.
2. Hackathons allow collaborating in person with other hackers. This is much more valuable to me than pure programming.
3. Hackathons are perfect places to find co-founders and developers, because they mix of programming and networking. I can demo apps and informally meet the people behind them all at once.
Edit: In all fairness, NightOwls isn't meant to be a hackathon. I used it as an example because it emphasizes working and getting things done.
http://www.meetup.com/Tel-Aviv-Nightowls/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHkKRO4Po_g is the video of our presentation btw :)
For example, see this account of a recent OpenBSD hackathon: http://undeadly.org/cgi?action=article&sid=2010111509113...
To answer the question, yes people really do code and come up with solid apps at these events. Check out the music hackday apps that were built last weekend at the same space: http://wiki.musichackday.org/index.php?title=NYC_2011_Hacks
More info on how we do planning: http://www.haskell.org/haskellwiki/Hackathon
A quick look at the Haskell page shows you guys are more focused on the language and supporting libraries themselves, which I assume most people are doing it out of love for the language and programming rather than any commercial gain.
My biggest pet-peeve at hackathons are those who turn up with full working hacks they did prior. Nothing wrong with that but please have the courtesy to not enter them into the competition against the poor smuck (like me) who only had the last 12 hours to pull their hack together.
There were a couple with projects that were written a week+ prior but we factored that into the conversation when giving out prizes.
Really? There were a couple that I could see that being a possibility with (the Etsy/Flickr guys), but I didn't even consider them as contenders seeing as how they sponsored. shrug
On the other hand, the New York hacker scene is anemic enough that we can use any chance to socialize and network that we get -- and there were people there actually coding things from scratch today, myself included.
I had to leave before the presentations, and haven't see most of the apps people have been working on, so I can't comment on the "overly polished" aspect of this... But in an ideal world, I would hope that people would be able to enjoy whichever aspects of the event were relevant to them, and not get sidetracked by the people who were on a different track.
I'm Jorge and I work as a software engineer at Foursquare. I'm sorry to hear that you're frustrated at our hackathon. Certainly some people are chatting and socializing, but that's only natural when you put a lot of people in the same room. From what I can tell though, the vast majority of people are actually building something today.
Some people have brought projects that they started before today, but I think that's not necessarily a bad thing. The hackathon wasn't meant as a sprint to see who can churn out the most code in a day, but rather a gathering of developers who are excited about the Foursquare API and what can be built on it. We want people to share ideas about what they're building and what's possible to build on top of our API, and yes, also to encourage people to build new stuff. (That said, not everyone has brought prior work to the hackathon! I know at least one team that has built several apps on top of our API in the past, and they've started a genuinely new project from scratch for the hackathon.)
If you feel the main room is too noisy, there's lots of side rooms at General Assembly which are a little quieter. You'll see teams in the side rooms making generous use of the white boards to design their app and plan out the necessary work for building it.
Again, I'm sorry you're feeling frustrated. If you have any suggestions on how we can make future hackathons more conducive to coding, feel free to ping me in meatspace. (I'm sitting against the big white wall by the water cooler. My name tag says "Jorge".)
There's still lots of socialization, but I believe hackathons should be centered around code, otherwise you might as well just call it a foursquare mixer. There were lots of really cool apps built at the iOS hackathon -- I'm really glad it was so hacker-centric, however the prizes were significant. Paypal gave away 3 iPads to winners that night.
Also, if the goal is to get people learning about the foursquare API -- the only way people will learn is by practicing. I learned a lot from others at the iOS hackathon -- even stuff I thought I already knew well. I think foursquare would get a lot more mileage if they just added a few small prizes to fuel competition.
Some of my friends are marathon runners -- they say that if the city sponsoring the running event offers no prizes, almost no professional runners will show up, but if the city offered a $100 small prize, there will be a significant amount of pro athletes attending. Does foursquare want pro hackers attending, or do they just want scavengers who are attending for the free food?
My frustration wasn't directed solely at the Foursquare hackathon. Like I said ... I've seen this happen at a number of other events I've participated in. Clearly, since the hackathon isn't over yet, I cannot speak to the apps written by the participants (in the original post, I was referring to past events organized by others). Clearly some amazing coders are going to show great apps they've built in a short period of time. My intent is not to belittle that effort.
To make matters worse, the judges only picked winners from the local area (and made poor choices IMHO). The second place winner did NO coding at all the entire time and the first place project was 4 months old.
Something needs to be done about this. Hackathons need standards too!
http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2241031
Also, I can't resist pointing out that all but ten lines of code for the first place hack were created during the Hackathon: https://github.com/dfield/ConcertMasterHero. That said, I did not accept the first place prize because I was an organizer.
I think opening a public git hub repo with what you want to work on then having people pull that down can start some great coding sessions.
Honestly, it's all about balance. My teammate and I spent 99% of the time at these two events coding. We walked in with absolutely no code pre-written, and emerged from both events with a fully-functional application, the synthesis of which we plan to put into full production in the near future. However, the one or two hours of networking that we engaged in, be it during "hacking time" or not, were extremely valuable (and, arguably, helped shape part of our final applications).
Just my two cents.
OP, I'd suggest you accept the current state of affairs, or start your own event focused on what you want to do. Why rain on other people's parade?
I went to the first SF startup weekend where 40 people tried to implement a single idea. A democratically selected idea which was the first choice of very few people.
They have since switched to competing self-selected teams and much better ideas and implementations resulted.
See? Distributed decision making works better for many things.
Anyway, my point, besides the blatantly political one, is attend events where the structure and rules are conducive to what you want to do. And if the rules aren't published in advance, call and find out. And don't be afraid to leave if you think you're time will be wasted.
It didn't win. Some robot that stabbed imaginary people in the air won.
It looked like most people there used existing software and just added something onto it. If I knew that, I would have come and added something to YouMixer.com ... I think I would have won :)
Update: I just went there and it looks like it somehow took off in spain!
I think one of the differences is having an overnight. The networkers and loiterers bugger off after a few hours leaving just the developers and designers overnight who want to actually make interesting things.
I think the ideal format is a pair of events, separated by a week or two. At the first, you present some cool new technology (a new sensor, embedded platform, api, etc.). You show some examples of how it works. People get together and discuss, form teams, etc. Then, during the next week or couple of weeks, they get together in person at other locations, or collaborate online, to develop stuff. Then, there's another big public meeting, where successful projects can be demonstrated. Best of both worlds. Maybe at the second session people can beta test, give feedback, etc.
(I'm actually at SuperHappyDevHouse 42 in San Jose right now; learning more about Intel TXT in a corner with my laptop, while other people play board games and socialize...)
Sitting at an orange table in the middle of the upstairs room staring at a laptop with a black wool shirt, fingerless gloves and a faux-hawk. Find me.